Saturday, May 24, 2008

I am not sure who knows, or who doesn't know that I am Native American. I am an enrolled member of the middle Mdewakanton Sioux tribe in MN. I drove my daughter up to my Aunt's yesterday evening and had my camera in my purse so we stopped and took some random pictures on our reservation.

Most of the pictures are water shots. We have a few accesses to the Mississippi River and the Vermillion River. The first shots I forgot to add a pic of the bridge, but this bridge had to be rebuilt about 10 years ago because the river floods every year in this spot. The bridge used to get covered when it flooded so they built it up higher, now it still floods all the time but the bridge stays dry. The first couple pictures are right there near this bridge, when you cross over the bridge you are on our reservation coming from the North. I also took a picture of one of my FAVORITE signs up there ;) Some kids made the turtle crossing sign, but it is worn now from the last couple years. But everytime I look at it attached to the speed limit sign I smile! For many many years we had no speed limit signs but have gotten them over the last few years. I took a picture of a ditch near the sports bar with all the garbage in it. That is just one shot you should see it all, it makes me so mad! There is garbages in the lot there near the bar/liquor store so why the hell does the ground look like a good spot for it? To me that is pure laziness!

The bottom two pics are of our Community Building (where I play community bingo lol) and the bottom picture is the hotel/casino. I only took a picture of the left side because the left side on the hotel is an addition being built right now. We are expanding the hotel by 220 rooms and also will be adding governer and presedential suites which we have never had. We had really nice suites on each floor but never the big fancy ones lol! Honestly all of the hotel rooms suites and regular and meeting rooms (which are huge also with beds, kitchen ect are very nice already.

There is also a new concert hall being built that will hopefully keep bringing bigger stars here to perform, also a new bowling alley with laser tag in the back of the casino, and a new spa. This is all stuff that is in the process of being built. It is all due to be completed and grand openings are due for the middle of Aug.

The picture of the turtle crossing sign is a very common spot to see eagle's. There is a HUGE nest in a treetop that has been there for years, but I forgot to take a picture of it. Eagles are amazing animals to me. There mating story is unbelievable! This may be TMI for some but I am going to tell you how it works. They fly full force at each other and lock which is when the mating process begins. IF they do not finish the job so to speak they will crash to the ground together and die. Talk about dedication and honor! Not to mention they are absolutely BEAUTIFUL period!

We have our Memorial Day Pow Wow going on today and tomorrow. Both of my daughter's are dancing. Tomorrow grand entry starts at 1 so I will head back up there then. My daughter Rayanna is spending the weekend with my other daughter Lexi.

I have SO Much going on right now with our move day in 10 days!! Here is the scary part lol. The first house we found fell through. The sellers were not straight up people and gave us a very weary feeling. SO now we have found two houses TOTALLY opposite. One is old but OMG does it have character. It is about 45 minutes out the cities and on 26 acres. It is huge about 4800 square feet and every single room is different and personal and the feeling I got when walking into the house was comforting a peacefulness! It is gated, when you turn into the property you have to put an access code to open this huge beautiful gate then drive about half a mile down this long driveway to get to the house. There is a 6 car garage, a ingroud pool that is beyond beautiful and a gazebo built in. The whole pool area is covered so no worries about the bugs in the summer. There is a absolutely adorable playhouse built a bit away from the house and a horse pasture and barn. The inside is charming, I would definately modernize a bit without taking away from the charm. I would be ripping down some wallpapers and repainting some stuff. But overall the house is amazing! I told hubby we could ride around naked on a 4 wheeler and NEVER worry about being seen lmao.

The other house is a 4200 square foot brand new never been lived in house that is stunning also!! The driveway just got done last week and the yard will be done this week coming up. So my choices are brand new, move in ready and will not have to do a thing but unpack. Or this unbelievable older home with SO much character. I have very little time to make a choice lol. We already decided that if push comes to shove we can go to my moms while we decide. Either way though we will be out of this corporate unit in 10 days either moving into one of these two houses or getting a FOURTH storage unit and putting what we have here in that for a few weeks lol.

I hope everyone is having a good Memorial Day weekend! My hubby made us really good Filet's, rice and bella mushrooms for dinner tonight. Him and I have been all over the place lately because life just gets stressful period!

Sorry I didn't do individual descriptions of each picture but my computer is acting funny and I was having a hard time doing it. So I just summed them up at the beginning of the entry lol

Love & Hugs to all of you!

Robyn

Here is something I copied and pasted from our tribal website for you to read :)

For many hundreds of years we have inhabited this area of Minnesota. The Prairie Island people are part of a larger group called the Dwellers of the Spirit Lake, in our language the Mde wakan ed otunwahe. Over the years this name has been shortened to Mdewakantonwan or Mdewakanton (M'DAY-wah-kahn-tahn).

The Mdewakanton are one of the seven sub-tribes who make up the alliance called Oceti Sakowin - the Seven Council Fires. Most of the world knows our alliance as the Sioux, which comes from an Ojibwe word nadowessi - "Little snakes." The French changed it to Nadowesioiux or simply Sioux. We call ourselves Dakota, Lakota, or Nakota, a word that means "allies" or "friends" in all three dialects.

The Dakota/Lakota/Nakota have reservations in the states of Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana; and in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.